How Can I Learn NOT To Be Sexually Jealous?

I'm a 46 year old female. Divorced for about 3 years. Left a 22-year marriage largely due to my being unsatisfied with the sex and I went outside of our relationship to be with other men (and women). Between partners before marriage, during and now after, I've had hundreds. I usually can orgasm, but it has been challenging...until I met the man I am currently seeing. He has been trained in Tantra and I am receiving the benefits. I am now having "hands-free" orgasms at the drop of the hat (well not quite, but close - while brushing my teeth, having my dress unzipped, gazing). So what's the problem? I am getting really attached to him and he has made it very clear that he doesn't want to be monogamous.

I have told him that I am okay with an open relationship and don't know if I can be monogamous either, but on nights when he's not with me and I think he's with someone else, I have the sick pit in my stomach feeling I can't shake. I'm trying to stay in the present and enjoy what I've got. I guess the "pit" is fear-based...fear that he will come across someone he connects with more than me and our thing will end. Fear that I will never have this intensity with anyone else. How do people live the polyamorous lifestyle and feel settled???

Dear LC,

I don't really have an answer for you. Throughout different phases of my long life, I have often thought I had the jealousy/possessive/insecure crap handled until I'd get that same sinking feeling that he's gonna find someone he likes better than me. And I never wanted to be monogamous either! I believe most all women want some kind of security or guarantee that just doesn't exist.

Even in my recent relationship with Eric that I always knew must end for his sake (due to our age differences), I still went through the jealousy/possessive/insecure crap at different times. For a woman my age with my experience it was hard for me to own up to this. However, the lesson repeats itself again and again: that wanting some kind of sexual security just doesn't exist. Even if a couple agrees to be monogamous, illness and death will enter the picture.

We all need learn to live with feelings of insecurity and accept the fact that all good things come to an end. Nothing lasts forever! Meanwhile, it would help if you had some kind of sexual connection with someone else, even if it's just a cyberspace affair. One thing that continues to work for me is to take a couple of hours off, get out my sex toys, plug in my vibrator and start running through my mental list of hot fantasies. Then I renew the commitment I made to myself way back in the sixties when I let go of trying to own another person: Lovers come and go, but the sex I have with myself will last a lifetime.

I am a 58 year old who has been with one man for 12 years, and before that, with another for 9. Now I am being single again, and having to think about safe sex.

I know, of course, about condoms for intercourse, and heard you both extolling the virtues of finger play, and mutual masturbation, but what about oral play? Can sexually transmitted disease be passed through sucking cock and eating pussy? Any tips and advice?